"Dying Inside" by Robert Silverberg

Do true telepaths exist? And if they did, what would their lives be like? Robert Silverberg tackles this question in Dying Inside, a sci-fi book from 1972 about a middle-aged neurotic Jewish man living in New York City who has had the power his entire life to read minds… but who is finding the power diminishing as he gets older.

David Selig has spent his entire life as a god walking among mortals. By projecting his mind into others, he can see their innermost thoughts. But whereas some might use this power to take advantage of others, Selig squanders it, finding himself bound by a sense of morality that prohibits him from using his gift for more than simple voyeurism. He doesn’t mind using his gift as a trick so that he can seduce a woman or gain a quick insight into others’ experiences, but he never uses it for and major evil… or any major good.

And that’s what makes this book such an interesting read. Silverberg tells the story from Selig’s point of view as he realizes that his gift is finally waning, that he is becoming telepathically impotent, and that his entire life has been a waste. As Selig’s present-day narrative shows the pitiful outcome of his decisions, he reflects back on many periods of his life, and how he was able to use his power to help himself… or hurt himself. There’s the story of a lost love, Kitty, the one person he was unable to read. There’s the story of another telepath, Nyquist, who ultimately betrayed Selig because he lacked morality. There’s the story of an acid trip gone bad that allowed another girlfriend, Toni, to briefly connect with Selig and to see the horror of his soul. There’s the story of Selig’s relationship with his sister, Judith, and the hatred she developed as she realized she had no thoughts that were private from him.

The content of the book is a bit mature — Silverberg tends to write gratuitous sex scenes into his books, but in this case, they actually fit. The story is about a man who can penetrate the minds of others, and the juxtoposition with sexual experiences is interesting and relevant. Sex is one of the few times when Selig feels like his connection with others is a two-way street. It’s also one of the few times when his mental probing proves ineffective, since the intense feelings associated with it can sever the mental bond. At the same time, Selig’s fascination with examining the sexual experiences of others shows how much he’s squandering his gift — he’s little more than a peeping Tom at times, something which defines his character.

The writing is good, and very interesting. It’s definitely one of Silverberg’s best books, and it’s very accessible even to non-science fiction readers. I’d actually say it’s closer in tone to magical realism, since the cause of telepathy is never explained nor justified. Unlike a lot of Silverberg books, this one actually has an ending, though I’m still on the fence as to whether or not it’s satisfying. It’s certainly interesting, if nothing else. You know when you pick up a book called Dying Inside that it’s going to have a dark, melancholy quality about it, and the tragic figure of David Selig is pathetic and unremarkable in the real world, despite his extraordinary gift. Fear prevents him from sharing what he really is with others, and he spends his entire life trying to blend in rather than trying to stand out. It’s sad, but real.

I’ve heard it said that this book is one of the most literary science fiction novels ever written. I’d certainly agree; Silverberg plays with various writing styles to suit the moods of the character, and uses the character’s background as a writer and English major to make allusions to classic works and to justify unusual narrative styles. There are some great lines in the book that play on the pretentiousness of the character. But there’s also a wonderful element of self-deprecation that gives the narrator some plausibility. He sounds like a Jewish man living in New York, and there are times where, in the reading, you can hear his voice, his accent, his inflections. It’s a masterful use of character, which is something you don’t often see in science fiction.

I find that a lot of my science fiction-reading friends aren’t familiar with Robert Silverberg, and that’s a shame. I’ll review several of his books this week for good measure. I had the good fortune of working with him on a graphic adaptation of one of his novellas, and I have enormous respect for him. He’s written novels for 55 years and is still putting out new work in his advanced years. He’s really fallen off the map as far as contemporary readers go, but he’s still well-known among sci-fi writers for his strong storytelling ability.

GENRE: Magical Realism / Sci-Fi
STORY: ****
CHARACTERS: ****
CONCEPT: ****
RE-READABILITY: ****

"The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death" by Daniel Manus Pinkwater

NOTE: Today’s book is also available as a free audiobook download that’s read by the author himself. It’s really funny. Get it here.

Daniel Manus Pinkwater (a.k.a. D.M. Pinkwater or Daniel Pinkwater — he likes to change it up to confuse librarians) is a fantastic writer. He’s also a fantastic storyteller. But where I mean the first use of “fantastic” as an adjective describing the QUALITY of his work, I mean the second use as an adjective describing the STYLE of his work. More than anyone I’ve ever read, Pinkwater is able to take fairly normal people and propel them into the purest realms of fantasy. He’s not writing about knights and wizards and dragons, though he could be if he wanted to. But his works take the reader into places unknown, places that have a certain magical quality about them, and which seem to be built partially on memory and partially on dreams.

And maybe “dreamlike” is the best way to describe The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, because it begins as a simple story about a boy named Walter Galt who is bored with his high school. Walter is a misfit, an intelligent person among a bunch of dullards. His only friend is a similar misfit named Winston Bongo, the inventor of “snarking out” — sneaking out in the middle of the night, riding a bus into Baconburg and watching movies at an old theater called The Snark. Snarking out helps Walter manage the tedium of high school and the insanity of his family — his mother is a terrible cook who believes communists are lurking around every corner, and his father is obsessed with avocados.

Winston and Walter eventually befriend a girl they call “Rat,” and they discover that snarking out is something that many people do, including Rat’s uncle, Flipping Hades Terwilliger, who never misses a show. But when Uncle Flipping goes missing (something he’s prone to do), the boys put their snarkout plans to the side and go on a quest to travel through the underworld of Baconburg (not necessarily a seedy place, but rather, a literal street underneath a street) searching for Uncle Flipping… and find themselves tangled up in an international criminal caper that revolves around a specially-bred avocado that can think like a computer.

OK, so the book’s a little bit weird. But it’s a good kind of weird, and well-written. It’s an adventure into places that no other writer will ever take you, with characters who could only exist in a Pinkwater book. There’s a sense of nostalgia to the book, a longing for old things and simple pleasures. The sequel, The Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror, is also quite good, and though it’s a little more aware of how weird it is, it’s also worth a read. (As a child, I read the sequel first, and thus preferred it, but many people feel that the original is the better of the two books.)

Though this is a book you’d find the Young Adult section, it’s a great light read, for three reasons:

1) It’s unique. I don’t use that word often, but it applies here. I’ve never read a book like it.
2) It’s never boring. Even though the book starts to get a little farcical towards the end, it still moves along at a brisk clip, and the ebb and flow of characters makes for interesting reading.
3) It doesn’t talk down to its audience. Part of the reason I can read this book as an adult and enjoy it so much is because it’s written for an intelligent audience. Pinkwater never talks down to kids, even in his picture books. That’s one of the reasons I liked them so much as a kid; they didn’t demean me.

If I have one complaint about this book, it’s that the story turns into a mystery two thirds of the way in that is not developed or compelling. The Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson-esque characters, while amusing, wear on you after awhile because they have everything figured out already and take dozens of pages to fill in all the backstory. You also feel no real satisfaction at seeing the master criminal, Wallace Nussbaum, brought to justice at the end because he never threatens the characters in any way.

This is a great collection, and well worth owning.

But don’t let that dissuade you from reading it. It’s fantastic, and you can buy it in a collection with four other great books:

• Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars
• Slaves of Spiegel
• The Last Guru
• Young Adult Novel

Give it a try. If you like the weird, you won’t be disappointed.

GENRE: Magical Realism / Fantasy
STORY: *** 1/2
CHARACTERS: ****
CONCEPT: ****
RE-READABILITY: ****

"The Neddiad" by Daniel Manus Pinkwater

I don’t know too many kids who grew up reading the way I did. Most of the kids I knew struggled to read, and most of what they read was pretty trashy stuff. Thriller books, ghost stories, books about high school kids having sex and getting killed by serial killers, and so forth.

But not me. Nope. I was reading the works of Daniel Manus Pinkwater, an author whose surreal, fantastic novels were the closest thing to a drug trip my mind could endure without actually abusing some kind of chemical.

Pinkwater wrote a lot of strange children’s novels in the ’70s and ’80s. I’ll touch on some of them in other reviews. But for now, I want to discuss a recent title of his, The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization.

It’s hard to describe a Pinkwater book without first explaining that the plot itself is inconsequential. That might sound like a slam, but it’s really not. Pinkwater seems to start his books with some vague idea of where they’re going, and he occasionally remembers to use techniques like foreshadowing and plot structure to pull you along. But sometimes, he just gets lost in his own wackiness and lets things go crazy. This was definitely true in some of my favorite novels of his, like The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death and Borgel.

The Neddiad starts off with a young boy writing about moving to LA in the 1950s, and quickly gets derailed into the realm of the weird when young Neddie is accidentally left behind at a train station. He befriends the son of a famous actor, meets a phantom bellboy, and has a bizarre encounter with a shaman named Melvin who gives him a little stone turtle to take care of. Neddie’s adventures veer off into tangents, and there’s not much of a sense of purpose behind the plot until the last third of the book, when the villain is finally introduced and things rapidly move towards a climax. In the meantime, the reader is treated to some really wonderful scenes and characters that seem like they were thrown in simply because they were interesting to Pinkwater at the time. One such character, Yggdrasil (also known as Iggy), serves very little purpose in the story aside from being the smart female companion to Neddie and his friend Seaumus in the second half of the book. (She’s the main character in the sequel, so I’m assuming her limited role was included for introductions’ sake. But it’s hard to tell with Pinkwater.)

Though this is a children’s book geared at the advanced chapter book kids, I found it readable and rewarding as an adult as well. I’ve never had a problem picking up a book marked “Young Adult” and reading it for pleasure. Sometimes, those books are the most imaginative, and it’s refreshing to read a book where hammy love stories aren’t being forced in and awkward sex scenes don’t have to be skipped over. Plus, Pinkwater’s books tend to feature overweight characters who are interested in mundane things and who don’t mind getting themselves into odd adventures. I love that.

One scene with this book will stick with me for awhile. Neddie and Seamus make friends with a boy whose father owns a circus, and the children watch as an old horse is taken out to pasture and shot dead by circus handlers. The boys are surprised, but the son of the circus owner explains, “Well, the lions have to eat something…”. It’s a chilling scene, and one of those moments where the book leaves the safe confines of fantasy and edges into reality. Most writers couldn’t pull it off, but Pinkwater’s good enough that the darkness is contained by some truly wacky moments elsewhere in the novel.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who needs a light, humorous read with a hint of fantasy to it. Fans of Norse mythology will also get a kick out of some of the allusions in this title, though they’re not too pronounced.

GENRE: Magical Realism / Fantasy
STORY: *** 1/2
CHARACTERS: ****
CONCEPT: ****
RE-READABILITY: ****

Tonight, I found myself absolutely stunned by the conclusion to season 5 of LOST. I’ve made no secret about the fact that I enjoy this show, and I’m still reeling from what was revealed. Be warned — spoilers follow the jump.

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I’ve had several people approach me over the last few months and ask me that most fateful of questions:

“It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to get into the comic book industry. So, how can I do it?”

It’s a big question. And unfortunately, I don’t have a straightforward answer to it for most people, because it really depends on what you’re trying to do. But what I can offer are some general guidelines that should help those who have this question burning in their brains to start finding some answers.

Let’s start out with the obvious point: there is no one “way” into the comic book industry. Everyone’s path is different. Most ways in require a large amount of patience and persistence, but some people do get lucky.

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It’s hard to believe, but eBay has been around for almost 15 years now. Granted, most people didn’t know about eBay until it went public in 1998, and it didn’t really become a household name until a few years ago. There’s no denying that eBay has been popular successful; it’s been called the savior of direct sales, the first major consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplace, and even the future of business as we know it.

But if eBay’s so great, why is it struggling to convince everyone it’s still relevant?

I ran across an article in Business Week last month that’s got me thinking that eBay is not only starting to become irrelevant, but that it’s a sign of the changes in the way people are using the Internet. It’s bad news for eBay, honestly, because if I’m correct, there’s really no way out for them. They’re going to have to let their core business shrink and focus on other business units if they want to survive. According to the article, eBay has already realized that its side businesses, like Skype and Paypal, have the potential to be profitable on their own.

But chances are good those businesses are going to go down with the lumbering dinosaur that has become eBay unless changes happen, and fast.

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I’m a devoted fan of LOST, and have been since the first season. A lot of my friends think I’m nuts to have stuck with the show so long, and one of them even asked me the other day, “what’s it going to take for those people to just get rescued?”

I was taken aback by the question — do I really want to explain that the latest season is about those who were rescued trying to get back to the island? — but it led me to think about why this show continues to be so compelling to so many people despite the many twists and turns it’s taken into the realm of science fiction. And then suddenly, the answer hit me.

LOST is religion.

Don’t misunderstand me here — I’m not saying the show is a religion. I’m saying that it’s a metaphor, a thorough look at the ideas of mysticism and the supernatural, but through a lens that doesn’t require a Bible, a priest, or even a church.

I’m going to talk about things that may be spoilers if you haven’t been keeping up with the show, so if you want to continue to be surprised, don’t read the rest of this article until you’ve got yourself caught up. (But since you can watch the entire run for free on ABC.com, why not get started now?)

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I don’t often write about the things I’ve actually done — I tend to get bored talking about myself — but I wanted to write up a brief piece reflecting on the arcade auction I visited earlier in the month.

As a kid, I was always drawn to video arcades, and I have fond memories of standing in Aladdin’s Castle in the mall, armed with a plastic baggie full of tokens and trying out as many games as possible until my money ran out. Another place that got quite a bit of my money was the arcade just outside the B/X on the military base where we lived — a great place to hang out while my mom was shopping for boring stuff, like clothes and household supplies. These were the days when arcade machines were everywhere, when Chuck-E-Cheese and Showbiz Pizza ruled supreme, when game magazines actually covered arcade games in their regular coverage. After all, arcade machines were a much better value proposition than the home systems — they had better graphics, more satisfying games and custom-built controls. Most only cost a quarter or two to play, and they didn’t tie up your family’s lone television set. I suspect, in the long run, I spent about as much on arcade gaming as I would have spent on a Nintendo Entertainment System with a small library of games. But whereas my Nintendo would have grown outdated and would be worth very little to me today, the memories of hanging around arcades discovering new games with my friends and my brothers are still with me.

As it happens, I live about three blocks from a fairgrounds where one of the largest arcade auctions in the Midwest is held. It happens every quarter (whether or not that’s intentional, it’s hilarious), and it involves people carting in retired arcade machines, pinball machines, air hockey tables and other amusement machines and putting them up for auction.

My wife would murder me if I brought one of these things home, so I have to settle for the next-best thing: the precious hours when they turn on all the machines and let people play them.

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Yesterday, I mentioned that I’m taking a break from Internet “chatter” by avoiding commenting on large forums and ignoring my Facebook account entirely. But don’t think this is the first time I’ve waged a personal war against wasting time with Internet “chatter”. Last year, I decided to stop using Internet chat services like AIM, Google Talk and Yahoo! Messenger because I realized I was wasting far too much time instant messaging people. And I’ve been avoiding Twitter like crazy, because, in my mind, it represents the absolute worst things that social networking has to offer.

Allow me to explain… though it will take me more than 140 characters, I’m afraid.

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Maybe I’m getting cranky in my old age, but I’ve been realizing lately that I waste a lot of time on the Internet engaging in “chatter”… like posting comments on peoples’ facebook updates, or writing responses to news posts on Fark.com, or commenting on message boards pertaining to skepticism.

Here’s the problem I’m having — it’s all a colossal waste of time, and it’s causing me to form a lot of shallow relationships that don’t matter instead of pursuing real ones that do. It’s also taking up a large amount of my free time that could be spent doing things I actually want to do, like contributing to my blog here, working on one of my many writing projects, or developing my relationships with others.

So, I’ve decided that I’m going to take some time off from commenting on forums and playing around on social networks and attempt to gain some sense of perspective. Even though a lot of the stuff I publish on this blog is rather trivial and unimportant, I’ve decided it’s not chatter, because its my primary purpose in posting is to keep myself writing so my skills can stay sharp. I suppose writing in a private journal would have then same effect, but I benefit from believing that people might actually learn something from whatever I say.

I also will allow myself to comment on a forum if a) the content is original and b) I am interacting with the author in a manner that is exchanging ideas, not chatter.

While I realize that this might seem preachy, it’s not intended to be; putting this down in writing is meant to keep me accountable.

Now if I could only find a way to get so fired up about the massive amounts of time I waste on online video…